Citing a Survey in APA Style (6th Edition) | Format & Examples

If you’re referring to your own survey research (and its results), you don’t normally need to use a formal APA Style citation. What you do instead depends on which of the following is true:

• Your survey/results are in an appendix to your dissertation
• Your survey/results are not in an appendix to your dissertation

The survey/results are in an appendix

In this case, just refer to the appendix that contains the survey.

Example: Referencing a survey in the appendix

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The survey/results are not in an appendix

Since you can’t refer to an appendix, you should instead refer to a “personal communication”. Using this term indicates that the survey/results are not available to third parties – including the reader.

Personal communication

APA Format	Not included in the literature list.
In the literature list	Not included in the literature list.
In the text	The survey showed that… (B. Swaen, personal communication, November 3, 2016).

We recommend that you always include your survey and its results in an appendix. If that isn’t possible for some reason, you can avoid having to use “personal communication” by going for the Intranet solution.